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Posts Tagged ‘Thinking’

Renewable energy sources have a few commonalities including they are generally free of pollutants, they do far less harm to the environment, systems that use renewable energy are less costly to operate than those that use fossil fuels. Solar power has all of these commonalities, however solar power systems are costly to acquire and install, which leads to the rise of do-it-yourself experimentation.

For just plain experimentation with solar power a small DC power lighting system that is easy and not very expensive to set up might be your best option. If you are not ready to tackle building your own panel, you can buy DC lighting systems complete with a solar panel that will provide enough DC power for a small lighting system or a DC appliance, a battery for stored power, and a charge regulator at places such as HarborFreight.com or NorthernTool.com for less than a couple of hundred dollars. The do-it-yourself crowd can find photovoltaic cells, charge regulators, inverters, batteries and other parts on eBay, add a few parts from your local hardware store, a good plan, and a little “sweat equity” and you can build a quality working solar panel. If you need AC power you can add an inexpensive inverter and watch TV on your deck. As your power needs increase you can add panels and batteries as needed.

Where can you use your solar powered lighting system? Out buildings such as sheds, garages, or barns are great candidates, they are usually not going to need constant lighting, and can be expensive to get power lines run to. There are many types of lighting that use far less energy than the incandescent bulb. Fluorescent light use much less power, give more light and burn a lot cooler. 12 volt DC bulbs and fixtures use less power, and burn cooler, they are somewhat limited in how much light they provide. A quickly changing technology in LED lights they use very little power, burn very cool and provide a great amount of light, expense will be an issue, but they are becoming less expensive every day.

Outdoor lighting of landscaping, gardens, walkways, driveways, decks, patios, pool areas are all naturals for low power lights and can very adequately be served by your new small solar system.

Another very useful project that is well suited for finding out how solar power works is heating hot water. Water heating systems use solar heat collector panels which use a series of pipes in frames to capture heat from the sun via a water alcohol mixture contained in the pipes, this mixture carries that heat to a heat exchanging device, where it preheats the water in your hot water system. Some systems supply just supplemental heat that will make your existing hot water heater have to work less, others are complete systems. Heating water consumes about 30% of the average homes utility costs, so the payoff for a hot water system is usually quicker that almost any other residential solar system.

After the experimentation has satisfied your curiosity about solar power and you have made a decision to proceed. You should check out all of the grants, rebates and/or any tax incentives that you might qualify for. Be aware that many of these may require that your systems are professionally installed by a qualified and properly licensed solar contractor.